


The End of the World

by arianapeterson19



Series: Avengers Shorts [9]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Attempted Kidnapping, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Tony, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Tony, Protective Avengers, Protective Clint, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-04-28 11:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5089157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arianapeterson19/pseuds/arianapeterson19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony was a genius and as his mother always pointed out when he was young and upset about a scraped knee or the like, he knew it wasn't the end of the world because no one else was crying. But it still wasn't fair that he was the one who ended up getting hit.</p><p>Or</p><p>The one where Tony really doesn't want to talk about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Tony Stark knew a lot of things-he was a genius after all-and he could reason out the rest.

"That's Tony Stark?" clarified Natasha, looking down at the genius, who had been transformed back into his three year old body.

Tony blinked up at her, young face blank, silent. It wasn't as though he didn't want to talk, his mind was bubbling with various things to say, but he couldn't bring himself to say any of them because if he did, then he would hear how small and squeaky it was, and that would be worse than actually turning into his three year old body. Tony was used to being smaller than the rest of his teammates, he was used to being smaller than the majority of men, but what he had lacked in size he had made up in volume. With an even smaller body than usual and a matching voice, it would be more than he was ready to handle, so he kept his silence.

"Yes," said Fury, rubbing his face in exhaustion. "Turns out that spell had a bit more of a kick than we originally thought."

"How long is it supposed to last?" asked Steve, shield thrown over his shoulder.

"It wasn't even supposed to happen, how am I supposed to know when it will wear off?" snapped Fury. "Look, just take the brat and get out of my sight. I have too much to deal with without adding a baby Stark to the list."

"What are we supposed to do with him?" said Clint, eyeing Tony as if he would blow up or bite.

"Take him home, take care of him, I don't know, just go deal with him away from here," said Fury.

Tony wanted to protest, to say he wasn't a brat, that he was right there, and to not talk about him as if he didn't understand, but he didn't. He just stood there.

"Tony," said Steve cautiously, crouching down to be eye level with the tot. "We're going home now, okay?"

The urge to yell at Steve for talking down to him was intense, but he fought it down because, oddly enough, he liked the care that was infused with the voice, as if Steve were asking his permission to go instead of demanding or ordering like he normally did.

"How much does he know or remember?" asked Natasha.

"I'm assuming that since he isn't talking or protesting every other word we say, that he was reverted back to his old self entirely," said Clint with a smile. "A three year old Stark, help us all."

Experimentally, Tony lifted his arms in the universal sign for up. Steve picked him up stiffly and Tony looked around with interest. The view from Steve's normal height was different. He could see the top of Natasha's hair and the way the lights bounced off of Fury's bald head. Tony wasted no time in squirming his way onto Steve's shoulders so he could see even more.

"So Baby Stark has just as little fear as regular Stark," laughed Clint. "This could be fun."

As Steve began walking, Tony swayed at the sadden movement and gripped Steve's blonde hair in his pudgy hands, pulling slightly to keep steady. He found he liked being so tall and also not having to walk everywhere. The entire situation freaked him out, he was beginning to realize that he would have to depend on people for help in his current situation, but for the moment, he decided he was going to enjoy the ride. After all, it wasn't every day that he got to ride on Captain America's shoulders.

At the Tower, Tony was set down and followed the others into the kitchen. There, he ran in to an obstacle. The chair towered over him because even at three, he had been insultingly small for his age. Still, never to be deterred, Tony began to crawl up the thing because he was going to sit in the chair.

He was almost to the top when his foot slipped and he went toppling back to the ground, hitting it with a smack, the impact stinging his hands and arms. For a moment, there was silence in the kitchen, and then Tony felt the most embarrassing thing begin to happen. It was as if the full impact of the entire situation was hitting him for the first time. Everything compounded on each other until finally, he could no longer take it, the fall off of a simple chair acting as the straw that broke the camels back, and he began to cry.

The tears were silent, sliding down his ruddy cheeks, because Tony had always been told that Stark men didn't cry and if he had to cry, it had better be silent. So Tony sat on the ground, pink lip out in an adorable pout, tiny tears slipping down his cheeks like the salty little traitors they were, betraying his emotions to his team mates who already knew he was human.

"Tony," said Clint softly, surprising the others by being the first to move to crouch by the fallen boy. "Hey buddy, you're okay."

Clint reached out a hand to wipe one of the tears but Tony flinched; he couldn't help it, it had been years since he had cried and the last time it happened, Howard had hit him for it and told him to shut up. Being small and surrounded by those who could easily kill him, was almost worse.

"Easy there, little guy," said Clint, internally seething at the flinch because kids as a rule feared little and craved physical contact, they wanted to be comforted, and they only flinched when they had been hurt before. "I am just going to see your hands and see if you have an ouch, okay?"

When Clint reached for Tony's hands, the little boy didn't flinch. He let them be drawn away from his chest and allowed Clint to gently uncurl them from their little fists. They only stung and were red, the fall hadn't been high enough to cause real damage.

"Just a bit red buddy," said Clint with his easy grin. "You'll be just fine. How about we go watch a movie in the living room? You can pick."

Tony nodded slowly, sniffing to stop his tears, even though he knew the sniffing went with his nose and tears came from north of there. Then, just out of curiosity, he tried the new trick he had learned and held up his arms, this time to Clint. The archer blinked in surprise but took it in stride, picking up Tony and holding him to his hard chest. Tony laid his head on Clint's shoulder, tears having tired him out.

"He likes me best," smirked Clint, sticking out his tongue smugly at the others. "Suck it."

"He doesn't talk much, does he?" said Bruce, moving to pop popcorn.

"Maybe he doesn't know how to yet," said Steve, placing cups on a tray along with various beverages that the Avengers enjoyed.

"Tony Stark, the boy genius, doesn't know how to talk at age three?" said Natasha. "Doubtful. It's more likely that he can talk but has mentally blocked the ability to cope with the situation at hand. Think about it, the kid woke u[ surrounded by strangers and forced to go with them. He's got to be scared."

"Or maybe he just doesn't have a lot to say," said Clint on the couch with Tony. "Maybe young Stark didn't use words as a defense. Maybe that was a trick he picked up when he was older. Maybe he's just waiting for you lot to leave before he talks to me, his clear favorite. There are lot's of what if's but I want to watch a movie now, so get in here."

Tony pointed when Clint clicked past Sherlock.

"Tony pick's Sherlock!" yelled Clint.

"He's too young for that," said Steve, setting the tray on the coffee table. "Pick a kids movie."

"No, I told him he could pick and he picked Sherlock."

"He's three, just put on something else."

"I promised. If you don't like it, you don't have to watch. Tony and I are going to, though. Everyone is free to join."

Tony sat cross legged and stared intently at the television as if that would magically make it begin the show. He knew that he could just ask Jarvis to play it but asking Jarvis would require him to open his mouth and speak and speaking would mean he heard his voice for the first time and hearing his voice would make it all too real and if he reacted to a simple fall with tears, he didn't want to know how he would take hearing his high pitched squeaky kid voice.

As the show finally began, Tony decided to see what Natasha would do to him if he tried to sit with her. Usually, she was not a touchy feely person and avoided physical contact for the most part. However, in his current state, Tony was curious to see if she would push him away, stiffen up, or flat out demand someone remove him from her side.

What he was not expecting was for Natasha to pull the blue blanket from over the back of the couch and lay it over him, smoothing his hair. With a soft sigh, Tony relaxed, blinked his eyes at the soothing rhythm, his brain quieting as he fell asleep.

When he woke up, he was in his bed. It wasn't much later, the sky outside his window was just starting to dim into the deep royal blue before night truly set in. The room was too big, too empty, and too quiet. Tony crawled off of the bed, which felt like was a mile but was in reality about three feet, and fell to the floor before he toddled out, back into the hallway. Jarvis lit the way with dim lights. The others were still in the television room watching Doctor Who. Without a word-which was becoming his norm- Tony climbed onto the couch where Clint was laying and curled into his side to watch. No one spoke, Clint merely pulled his tiny teammate onto his chest to be more comfortable, Steve tossed them a blanket, and they all settled down.

The rise and fall of Clint's chest and the beat of his heart was so calming that he couldn't help drifting to sleep. Unconsciously, Tony burrowed further into his chest, tiny fingers curling around the clean fabric of the archers shirt as if he was afraid he would disappear.

"Tony's cuddly," said Bruce. "It's sort of cute."

"This taking care of a kid thing is easy," said Steve. "I don't know what everyone is complaining about."

"You'd better hope he doesn't start talking," said Natasha with a smile.

"No, talking would be fun," corrected Clint softly so as not to wake his charge. "What you'd better hope is that we don't get called into action while he's small."

As soon as he said the words, the call to assemble sounded.


	2. People are Idiots

"We can't just leave him unsupervised," snapped Bruce. "Look, I'll stay with him while you guys take care of this mess."

"Jarvis is here," reasoned Steve. "If we just lock him in a bedroom, he'll probably fall back asleep and Jarvis will notify us if anything goes wrong."

Tony wanted to yell at them for wasting time. He wanted to summon his suit and get out there, protect people, because he still had a lifetime of wrongs to right. But he was essentially a selfish creature and couldn't bring himself to speak and hear his young voice. Instead, he went and crawled under the couch.

"Look, just go, I'm tired, you have the Hulk, you'll be fine," said Clint, throwing up his hands. "I'm taking a nap. Have fun saving the world again."

Natasha met Clint's eyes and nodded.

"Come on," said Natasha in her even voice. "The faster we stop whatever villain decided to try their luck, the faster we can get some food."

"I'll order pizza and have it hear by the time you get back," said Clint with a grin, moving back to the couch.

The others left as Clint sat down on the ground, leaning to the floor so he could peak at the toddler hiding under it.

"Hey Tony," said Clint with a grin. "You want to come on out now, buddy?"

Tony shook his head. The alarm was still blaring and it hurt his sensitive ears that had not had decades of loud music and explosives to dull it. To get his message across without words, he put his little hands over his ears. It did little to muffle the sound.

"Jarvis, cut the alarm please," said Clint.

"Right away," said Jarvis.

The alarm cut off mid whine. Slowly, Tony eased his hands away from his ears as if he was afraid it was a joke and the noise would start again the moment he let his guard down.

"Come on, Buddy," said Clint. "If you come out, I'll let you play with-"

The room exploded, glass window shattering inward, noise reverberating off the walls, Clint covered his head as debris rained around and Tony was dragged back with the couch, small body bumping painfully as he went. Before the rubble had settled, Clint was up, activating his bow, which he had close at hand because of the alarm, eyes scanning the scene for danger.

Tony, stuck under the ruined couch, one large piece sticking out of his left arm while a gash on his foot throbbed angrily. He could feel his toddler emotions betraying him again, fighting against all reason for him to scream and cry even though his mind could reason out that the pain was from his injuries and crying would do nothing for them.

Then people were pouring in from the hole in the wall and Clint was shooting them while Tony could only look on with wide eyes, distracted momentarily from his pain by seeing the archer in action. But that distraction cost him because suddenly he was in the air, the arms of a stranger wrapped around his already injured left arm and if there was anything more frightening than being turned back into a toddler, it was being turned back into a toddler and someone trying to kidnap you.

The pain in his arm combined with the unknown man attempting to take him away from his home by force made Tony scream out in a decidedly high pitched, terrifyingly painful yelp.

What the would-be kidnapper had not planned on was Tony Stark fighting back. The man had clearly never tried to hold on to an upset toddler before, because Tony's sudden movements caused him to drop the child in surprise after just a few seconds. As soon as he was on the ground, Tony was off, scrambling through the debris and wreckage of the room to latch on to Clint's left ankle. The archer spared the young Avenger a glance, more to confirm that the sudden slight weight on his foot was indeed Tony, before deftly shooting an arrow through the eye of the man who had scared the boy so.

Their assailants were dwindling in numbers quickly because even caught off guard and virtually alone, Clint was more deadly than the eleven men and women who had foolishly broken into the home of the collective Avengers. The final two villains Clint shot to kill, his patience gone due to the trembling mass he could feel attached to his leg; people who harmed children had no place in the world, even if keeping them alive would help Clint find out who sent them.

The silence that usually followed a fight was absent, sniffling and near silent sobs taking its place. Clint scooped Tony up and relocated them to a bedroom off the hall, locking the door and asking Jarvis to keep an eye on the attackers, set to alert Hawkeye if any of them moved.

Tony, for his part, clung to Clint as if his life depended on it. For all his genius, he could not stop crying and shaking nor the irrational fear that someone was going to try to take him away again and he would be powerless to stop them. Even when Clint attempted to pry him off to check over his wounds, Tony refused to let go, only gripping the archers shirt more tightly and burrowing further into his shoulder. Part of it was because Tony didn't want Clint to see him in such a way, his pride smarting at the thought, but most of it was the irrational fear of abandonment.

"It's okay," soothed Clint softly. "You're okay now. I've got you. I'm not going to let anyone take you away. I just want to check you over for any ouches, okay? So I need you to let go now, Tony."

Tony shook his head.

"Tony, come on," said Clint, gently tugging the little boy away from where he was trying to become one with Clint's shoulder. "Let me see."

Too small to match the archers strength, Tony was pulled from his haven and could finally see that he had ruined Clint's shirt with the blood from his wounds. The tiny billionaire would have felt bad about that if he hadn't been busy blinking the tears out of his eyes.

"Bruce is going to kill me," groaned Clint when he saw the damage done to the littlest member of the Avengers. "I had one job, keep you safe, and I couldn't even do that. Jarvis?"

"Yes, Master Barton?" came the ready reply.

"Would you patch me through to the group comms?" said Clint, leaning back against the headboard of the bed, adrenalin draining from his body.

"Of course," said the AI.

"You guys almost done?" called Clint when the sounds of fighting entered the room via speakers.

"Depends," grunted Steve. "Have you ordered that pizza yet?"

"No, I was a little busy fighting off a group of idiots that thought it'd be a good idea to blow a hole in our living room and kidnap Stark for good measure," snapped Clint, not in the mood to deal with anyone's sass.

"Wait, what?" said Steve and Clint and Tony could almost see the super soldier standing up a bit straighter.

"You heard me, Captain," said Clint. "Some idiots blew a hole in the living room. They didn't survive long but they did try to take Stark."

"Is he okay?" asked Natasha.

"Banner will want to take a look at him," admitted Clint.

"ETA is twelve minutes," said Steve.

"Roger."

The line was ended and Clint looked down at the toddler still sitting in his lap. Tony had taken the distraction to once against curl up close to Clint and the assassin found he didn't have the heart to move him again. Tony, instead, was mildly interested in a distant way to discover how truly cuddly he was. The older, logical part of his mind knew it was due to being touch starved and ignored as a child, but the toddler portion of his brain was just concerned with having the physical reassurance that he was not alone, that someone was there to care for him. When Clint began combing through Tony's hair absently, Tony closed his eyes, the pain receding slightly as exhaustion and the soothing sensation of his hair being finger combed lulled him into a peaceful slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've convinced me, more chapters. Maybe.
> 
> Always,   
> Ari


	3. Pizza

In the end, Steve brought the pizza. Bruce managed to patch Tony up and they all relocated to Tony's suite where they held movie night more often than not. His bed was huge, easily accommodating 4 normal sized Avengers and one child sized Tony, who cuddled up to Bruce while the others got the movie going and the food distributed.

"Tony, you want some pizza?" asked Steve from the kitchenette.

"You're joking, right?" laughed Clint. "Tony loves pizza. Don't ask stupid questions, Rogers."

"I'd like it if you got Tony something with more nutritional value," said Bruce from where he was sitting with Tony on the bed. "He's young and in pain and he needs something more than pizza."

Tony glared at Bruce and squirmed away, only to have a sharp pain shoot up his leg, making him whimper and roll, clutching the offending limb. He rolled out of reach of Bruce and would have toppled off the bed had Clint not anticipated the move and caught him.

"You all are the worst babysitters ever," said Clint, adjusting his grasp on Tony to a more comfortable hold, the toddler leaning against his chest tiredly. "Seriously, Tony has had one hell of a day. He got turned into a toddler, almost got kidnapped, was injured, and now you're telling him he can't have his favorite food? You all suck."

"We can't just let him do whatever," protested Bruce.

"We can damn well let him have a pass for tonight," snapped Clint, grabbing a box of pizza and sitting in the center of the bed with Tony, handing the little boy a slice before snatching up his own.

Tony was ashamed at how comfortable he was in Clint's grasp but he couldn't find it in him to actually care. It had been one of the more bizarre days in his life, and that included the time he had eaten a donut while sitting in a giant donut. Still, he couldn't help thinking about how if he came across a light, that little lamppost of hope Bruce was forever insisting was out there, shining just for him, that he would follow that light to the ends of the earth. Not very fast, not very well, but he would follow it because he was sure it would lead to these people. His life, up until this point, had been a mess of national statistics, pictures and numbers plastered across the cover of some cheap magazine. Everyone knew how he lost his parents when he was 17, that he was a genius, they witnessed his descent into insanity via the papers and media, but not a single one of those pictures captured anything important. The only picture out of the millions of him that existed that Tony had any desire to capture was one of this moment in time, where all of the Avengers were piled onto his bed in their respective pajamas, eating pizza and curled protectively against him while JARVIS played a movie in the background.

Eventually, Tony felt his eyes closing for what felt like the 100th time in a day, he silently cursed toddlers for needing so much as much as he wanted to fight it, as much as he wanted to force his body to stay awake, he simply gave in instead, curling into Natasha because she smelled nice, and fell asleep.

"I wonder what Stark's childhood was actually like," said Natasha quietly hours later when all but Clint had fallen asleep, another movie playing softly in the background.

"Not as sunny as we all assumed," said Clint, shaking his head from the other side of Tony, the small form sandwiched between the two assassins.

"How do you figure that?" asked Natasha, not disagreeing, just wanting to hear her friend's reasoning.

"We all assumed that because of his father, because his entire life seems to be plastered across the papers, that he had it all, the only downside being the constant attention. But even then we didn't think that was that difficult for him since he seems to soak up the limelight. But he flinched. Earlier, in the kitchen, when he fell from the chair, I reached out to check on him and he flinched."

"I saw that too," nodded Natasha.

"No one just flinches. Somewhere along the line, he learned to be scared of those bigger and stronger than him. Did you ever wonder why he built the Iron Man suit? Not in the cave, we all know why he did it then, but after. He had spent his entire life being smaller than everyone else, being pushed around, and he had finally discovered a way to defend himself, so he took it."

Natasha looked down at the tiny form curled against her stomach and smiled. She couldn't imagine anyone wanting to hurt someone as adorable as Tony, but she also knew it had likely happened over and over again until finally the billionaire found his own was of coping, as self destructive and obnoxious as it was, and it had worked.

"At least we're here now," said Clint. "We just have to convince him that we're not leaving."

"But he'll feel obsolete," Natasha pointed out. "He wants to be useful and if we are protecting him, he'll feel like a liability."

"Then we make him see that it's a trade," shrugged Clint, yawning. "It is, after all. We protect him from those who would hurt him and he protects us from the media. Everyone wins."

With that, Clint fell asleep and as Natasha looked down at her best friend and the toddler who had become one of her best friends, she finally understood that they all had their issues and her ledger may be dripping red, but they would find a way to work it out. Because if someone like Clint could find it in him to spare her life and if someone like Tony, abused and scared, could find comfort and protection in her, she couldn't be as bad as she chalked herself up to be.

The next morning, when the Avengers woke up and found a normal sized Tony Stark had fled to the comforting confines of his workshop, they all decided not to mention the toddler incident, which Tony seemed very agreeable to. And if Clint left pizza where to inventor would find it and Natasha made an effort to teach Tony how to spare properly, no one said a thing.


End file.
